Naruto Redux
by fallen-chan
Summary: /Facts - Uchiha is antisocial. Uzumaki is attention-starved.\ Throw facts into the blender, blend on high for 12 years, and serve cold. •ℵ• Uchiha is a girl. So is Uzumaki. Sakura wonders what deity he offended in a previous life to deserve this.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Kishimoto-san owns Naruto. The last time I checked, Kishimoto wasn't female. Nor was he in high school. Unless he's regressed in age and undergone surgery and hormone therapy to get more in touch with his inner female ...

_[this is stuff that happened in the past]_

**A/N:** no clue where the idea for this came from, or where I want this to go. It might be a one-shot (or a two-shot, really). It might be a collection of one-shots. It might turn into a multi-chaptered fic_. _[Is it blindingly obvious that I'm horribly indecisive? I blame the road of life for being so unpredictable; why, just the other day there was a black cat in a tree full of squirrels ... ]

Also. Sasuke is a girl. So is Naruto. Sakura is a boy. The names aren't changing. I _think _those are the only gender-reversals planned. Maybe.

* * *

"Team 7 – Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura. Your jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi. Team 8 – Inuzuka Kiba …"

That was three hours ago. In those three hours, Sakura discovered that (1) his teammates disliked their team assignment just as much as he did; and (2) contrary to popular belief, Uchiha and Uzumaki got along _quite_ well. It wasn't not something readily noticed, but Sakura didn't claw his way to Rookie of the Year using book smarts alone; Uchiha Sasuke made it perfectly clear that he was an unwanted addition to whatever partnership she has built with Uzumaki Naruto and the latter simply didn't care enough to argue the point with her.

_[He called her "Sasuke-chan" when all the other teams had long since disappeared with their sensei, his reasoning being that they were teammates now and they had to start working on their team dynamic sooner or later, so why not start now while they were waiting for their sensei? There was cold metal pressed against his neck before he finished speaking and Sasuke's eyes spat fire as she coolly informed him that he had no right to address her in such a familiar manner. Uzumaki was no longer behind Sasuke; his eyes slid to the side and he promptly stopped the hand inching toward his weapons pouch at the sight of the blond girl sitting on an empty desk with a set of kunai in hand (and those were __**exploding tags**__ attached to them, weren't they?). Uchiha Sasuke may have been the best kunoichi in their year but Uzumaki Naruto was just as dangerous whenever weapons and explosives were within her reach.]_

Sakura sighed – again – and shifted in his seat to stare at the clock. Uchiha and Uzumaki were off in a corner, doing something that involved a set of dice, plastic coloured blocks, and senbon. Even from here, he could feel the chakra imbued in those blocks and it was painfully obvious that while he had been awarded the title "Rookie of the Year," the two kunoichi were more skilled than him. They both knew some higher-level chakra manipulation; coupled with Uchiha's "perfect" taijutsu, Uzumaki's knack for handling pointy objects and explosives, and their unnaturally large chakra reserves, it painted a frighteningly clear message to Sakura – _he_ was the weakest of the team. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth and he looked to his teammates again.

Uzumaki was looking at him. Something about the girl's unblinking stare reminded him of a predator assessing potential prey. The blocks lay forgotten on the desk – they were all on her side, anyways, the red facing up – and the Uchiha scowled darkly when she noticed what Naruto was looking at. The blond looked away as soon as a scroll landed on Sakura's desk.

There was something decidedly unnerving about the silent interaction between his teammates; the way the two kunoichi interacted in the silence gnawed at his brain and, not for the first time in the last three hours, Haruno Sakura felt like he was being mocked. It was, he decided, a decidedly unpleasant feeling. The title of the scroll – _Chakra Control Exercises _– didn't help at all.

When the door opened (_finally!_) and their sensei walked in, Sakura was the only one who refrained from attacking, deliberately or not. Uchiha sent a volley of shuriken, Uzumaki a volley of kunai with exploding tags attached before she fell back, more than ready to activate the tags remotely. Whatever smugness he felt at seeing the two kunoichi dodge their own weapons promptly disappeared when the jounin briefly looked them over before telling them – while looking at _him_ – very bluntly that "my first impression of you guys is … I hate you."

How come _he_ was the one left feeling like he had just failed a test when his _teammates_ were the vaguely homicidal genin who attacked their new sensei without any provocation?

Sakura decided then and there that he must have committed some horrible unspeakable crime in a past life to deserve _this_ – first being placed on a team with two kunoichi, both stronger than him and unwilling to expand their comfortable group of two, and now being stuck with a jounin sensei who saw nothing wrong with arriving three hours late and preferred genin who attacked without reason to the _respectful_ genin waiting (semi) attentively for instructions.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

If someone were to try and discern exactly when Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke became friends, they would need to go back to the pre-Uchiha massacre years. _Why_ they became friends, on the other hand … well, Hatake Kakashi might only have known the two by reputation, but it didn't take a genius of a Nara's caliber to realize that the last (loyal) Uchiha hated Uchiha Itachi with a passion (and, after passing out for the third time in a month from chakra exhaustion after trying – and failing – to learn more advanced Katon jutsu from family scrolls, knew that on her own, she was nowhere close to Itachi's level). Throw in Naruto's persistence when curious and her larger-than-average (for a _Chuunin_, at the very least) chakra reserves to the mess that was Sasuke's revenge-oriented mentality and it was a recipe for instant hatred or friendship, as the two were bound to meet (the Academy, after all, was only so large).

As it was, within three months of the massacre, it was public knowledge that wherever Sasuke went, Naruto was sure to follow and vice-versa. Strangely enough, just a week before the first trio of graduates showed up at the hospital looking like they had walked into a forest fire, Sasuke had been sulking when she went to class every day, sporting a black eye, and Naruto was shooting glares at the Uchiha …

At least two-thirds of his team was already a cohesive unit. Kakashi was more than willing to teach Sasuke and Naruto, for Obito's sake and for his sensei's sake, but putting them on a team with the Haruno kid – who only excelled in bookwork, of all things – created one of the most unbalanced teams he had ever seen (and after personally failing over 10 teams, he had seen quite a few). Even the traditional arrangement of the Rookie of the Year, the dead-last, and the top kunoichi of the year was easier to work with!

"So … why don't you introduce yourselves. Likes, dislikes, that type of stuff."

Sasuke scowled. Naruto's hand twitched, as though she was holding back from throwing more sharp pointy objects at him. Sakura glared at him – and surprisingly enough, that was actually some killing intent mixed with the general disbelief – before speaking up. "Why don't you go first, sensei?" All three genin nodded in unison.

Then again, maybe he was just being too pessimistic. His team _could_ turn out to be one of the most successful in recent history … and Jiraiya would swear off writing porn and peeping on the women's side of the onsen and become a celibate monk.

On second thought, failing this team was sounding more and more attractive. He wasn't cut out to deal with the inevitable inferiority complex Sakura would develop and the slew of psychological issues Sasuke had (and he wasn't even going to think of Naruto, whose psych evaluation the Hokage openly called "worthless.").


	2. Chapter 2

They met at a low bridge crossing a quiet stream, the faint pre-dawn light casting a pale glow that reflected off the water onto the wood of the bridge. She threw a tomato at the other girl's head and caught the kunai thrown - purely on instinct - at her throat with a grin, adding it to her own collection of weapons. "I can see _I'm_ not appreciated" she said, though there wasn't much heat to the words. "Aim lower" was added as an afterthought as she leaned against the railing, staring at the horizon.

"The larynx-" Sasuke began after swallowing a mouthful of tomato, holding it over the stream and letting the juice drip down into the water.

"- trachea would block the airway. Separate it if you throw hard enough." Naruto laughed, pushing herself up onto the railing, feet hitting the bars. "Kunai in the throat's enough, probably." Her smile was a wide one, all teeth and no lip. "Wanna try now?"

Instead of a kunai, a red bean bun hit her throat, bouncing off and almost falling into the stream before she caught it. "Let's go."

~.~.~

Sakura was leaning against a tree, half-asleep, when they arrived. Naruto rocked from her heels to her toes, fingers inching toward her weapons pouch, when Sasuke's eyes slid to the right. The blond stilled, entire body relaxing into a lazy slouch that added to a perfectly unassuming appearance, and huffed quietly, only mildly interested in the pink-haired boy. "How much longer?" she asked, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "It's almost eight." Unspoken was the addendum that she handled boredom very poorly and she was fast-approaching that state; Sasuke knew it, she knew it, and that was all that mattered.

"He'll be here eventually." Sasuke was singularly uninterested in minor setbacks like their instructor's tardiness, Naruto decided. She rolled her shoulders, watching the leaves blown about by the light mid-morning breeze, and a slow smile spread across her face. It wasn't a particularly friendly one.

"Hey Sasuke …"

~.~.~

Sakura jolted awake to the sound of metal on metal and he dove to the side ungracefully, dodging a kunai that thudded into the trunk of the tree. He noted with no small amount of chagrin that it would have missed his head by a sizeable margin if he hadn't moved and climbed to his feet quickly, reaching for his own weapons.

"Look who's finally awake!" Uzumaki Naruto flung a handful of shuriken over her shoulder, each one intercepting a kunai flying at her back, and dropped down from the branch she had been perching on with an easy grin, stooping to gather her discarded kunai. "Have a nice nap?"

He wanted to believe that it was a perfectly innocuous statement, he really did. Her tone was certainly friendly enough and there was little to suggest that it _wasn't_ just an idle conversation but he felt, vaguely, that he was being mocked. "Where's Kakashi-sensei?" he asked instead, trying to redirect the conversation from his lack of initiative (for in the end, that was what his decision to sit and wait was).

Her smile widened. "Not here yet" she offered, taking a mixed handful of weapons from a clone before dispelling it with a quick flick of a kunai. Each weapon went back into her weapons pouch and, when she was finished, she plucked her kunai from the tree. "Dodge" she added as an afterthought, wrapping an explosive tag around the handle of her kunai.

"Wait, no, what are you doi-?" His question was cut off when a hand wrapped around his arm, easily pulling him to the side. Off-balance, he glowered at the brunette now leaning against the tree trunk and realized, quite belatedly, that he had just been pulled out of the way of a kunai armed with an explosive tag. The customary explosion was markedly absent and his mouth became dry when he realized that Uzumaki had thrown it at their sensei. As in, the authority figure in charge of deciding their futures. "_Why_ did you – I'm so sorry, she wasn't aiming for you -" but his apology faltered under the combined forces of Uchiha's silent stare and Uzumaki's unfaltering smile, all teeth and no warmth.

"Don't listen to him" Uzumaki announced to no one in particular, walking over to stand next to the Uchiha.

Sakura felt distinctly uncomfortable with having both of them at his back.

Hatake Kakashi lamented his misfortune internally as the third member – and, coincidentally, the only boy - of his newest team tried to discreetly scoot away from the two females.

Naruto's smile widened a fraction.

* * *

**A/N:** I should warn right now that chapters will _definitely_ vary in length; most of them will be shorter, as the bits and pieces of ideas I get for this piece are rarely suited for the creation of anything other than a short ficlet.

That said, this idea hit me on the train when I was going home for spring break. I've already tried writing out various incarnations of the full bell test for roughly a week and each version's just gotten progressively worse, so ... ^^;


End file.
